Who Are The Enemies Within?

    According to The Tally Ho, Number 2 has called for an increase in vigilance, and in the article headed “Security of The Community” he goes on to talk about “the enemies in our midst.” So who are these unseen enemies? Well one was Number 12 of Administration. He colluded with Number 6 to stop the educational experiment of Speedlearn, to destroy the General. And Number 6 is The Village’s “public enemy,” amongst other malcontents.

   Number 6 in one of his election speeches said that his prime objective is security of the community. In the article Number 2 speaks of security, but it’s the security of the Community which must be protected, not the community itself! Unless he means if the security is broken, then the people are then left unprotected.

   “We must constantly be on our guard against enemies in our midst,” although they don’t necessarily know where their enemies might be, or who they are. Might not these enemies within, who Number 2 refers to, be Jammers? After all the actions taken by Number 6 were the acts of a Jammer, non-existent plots and schemes thought up simply to play on Number 2’s paranoia.

   Number 2 warns the community to be on constant look out against traitors, who behind their back, seek to undermine and destroy them. Well both the shopkeeper and the waiter at the café in ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ took those words to heart. And in their readiness to report any unusual activity to Number 2 made it easy for Number 6 to play them as pawns in his game against Number 2. He accused the Supervisor-Number 26 as being part of a conspiracy, and had him removed from his position. And his assistant, Number 14, he accused of being a traitor, in working with Number 6 behind his back! If only Number 2 had trusted his assistant more, allowed him to work more closely with him, he would have seen what a loyal ally Number 14 was, or could have been, against Number 6.

    “No mercy would be shown to those who, against the interests of the community, sabotage “our great achievements.” That reads like the out-going Number 2 of ‘It’s Your Funeral.’ But it didn’t work for the General and Speedlearn, those “achievements” were well and truly sabotaged by Number 6, aided by Number 12 of course.

   So Number 2 is going to teach those who think they can get away with their plots and conspiracies, a short sharp lesson. Could this possibly be building up to the mass reprisals for the assassination of the out-going Number 2 of ‘It’s Your Funeral?’ After all at the time of the above article in The Tally Ho, the “enemies within” were unknown, only suspected. Yet by the time of ‘It’s Your Funeral’ a list of “malcontents” had been drawn up, and Number 6 was top of that list. So it had been decided to take action against those unmutuals, the troublemakers, rumourmongers, and trouble makers. In other words not just give a short sharp shock to the community, but to purge itself at the same time. Would such a purge of its malcontents have included Number6? It should have done, had it taken place.

    But its not only the conspirators who need to look out, its those who look the other way, and not report their suspicions, as they themselves would be treated as traitors! This of course would include people like Number 112 the shopkeeper of the General Stores, and the waiter at the café.

    The only trouble is, Number 2 is initiating a witch-hunt. “It is the duty of each one of us to fight this menace and those who know more than they tell are high on the list of guilty ones. No mercy will be shown to anyone who shirks his duty to report his neighbour’s secrets.” He expects neighbour to report neighbour as with the McCarthy Communist witch-hunt of the 1950’s, when anyone and everyone could become suspected of being a Communist.

   And yet the word “security” rings richly in our ears today. Everyone must be vigilant against the conspirators who endanger our community. The only word Number 2 doesn’t use is “Terrorism!”

   

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